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It’s November again and the college application season is in full swing. We (Carlos Galan, Michelle Cadena, and 50 volunteer mentors) have been helping 175 high school seniors apply to college. For California public universities (the University of California [UC] and the California State University [CSU]), the applications are due on Sunday, November 30. This […]

A few weeks back, California Governor Jerry Brown signed California Senate Bill 1210 (SB 1210) into law. SB 1210 establishes the California DREAM Loan Program for undocumented immigrant students attending the California State University (CSU) and the University of California (UC). In short, undocumented immigrant students who qualify for reduced in-state academic fees (AB 540), […]

Part of my responsibilities here in the Pullias Center for Higher Education is overseeing the Increasing Access via Mentoring (I AM) Program—one of the center’s two outreach programs. I AM is an action-based intensive mentoring model where USC staff and graduate students guide Los Angeles area college-ready high school seniors through the college and financial aid […]

Late one night last fall, I ended up driving through the UCLA campus after the LA Metro Transportation Authority, Caltrans, and Kiewit decided to reroute me and other drivers off the 405 freeway for the one-millionth time in the last five years, but I digress. I attended UCLA as an undergrad and then worked as […]

Tomorrow is Independence Day. For many, July 4 is a day of rest spent with family and/or friends eating and drinking (and in my case avoiding getting a really bad sunburn). In the spirit of the holiday, I wanted to point out two random facts about Independence Day … 8 of the 56 signers of […]

We’re in the middle of our annual SummerTIME Program. The students arrived last Monday and they’re with us until next Wednesday. This is my seventh year being involved in SummerTIME and my first year directing it on my own. I’m lucky to have a handful of dedicated student workers and a full-time assistant—most of which […]

My neighbor has two teenage kids. One is a sophomore at a UC campus and the other is a senior at a large public charter high school. Over the years, we’ve talked about college stuff since her kids are college-aged and she knows that I work in higher ed. Mostly, she asks a lot of […]

The halfway point is usually when whatever I’m doing becomes real. I remember when I was writing my qualifying exam … I had to respond to 3 questions in exactly 50 pages in no more than 30 days. Halfway through the exam I was crying inside my parked car outside of my apartment building. The […]

Earlier this year, the Pullias Center for Higher Education held its annual SummerTIME program (Tools, Information, Motivation, Education). Before SummerTIME began, I blogged about the compulsory financial aid counseling appointments with SummerTIME students. Specifically, I discussed how I was anticipating about 75% of students having an issue-free financial aid offer, 20% having issues that could […]